dreadedmonkeygod . net

For those of you just tuning in, chapter one is here, and chapter 2 is here.

The senior manager at Washington Mutual, "Stan" just called. He said that he has no record of my cancellation requests on Sunday night. I said that I'd spoken with a supervisor named "Helen" yesterday, and suggested that he get her on the line. That was "not possible." I suggested we get "Rita", whom I spoke with on Monday, on the line. That was also, "not possible."

Stan just kept telling me that he has no record of what the customer service reps and I talked about on Sunday night, so he can't verify that I asked the rep to cancel the payment.

In other words: Washington Mutual did not make a mistake, because Washington Mutual has no record of making a mistake. My own notes are irrelavent.

If I want Stan to "deem this a bank error", I have to prove:

1. that I asked on Sunday night for the payment to be canceled.
2. that Sunday night wasn't too late to cancel the payment
3. that the customer service rep did something other than what I asked him to do

And I have to do it using Washington Mutual's own records.

I pointed out that I'm looking at my account on Washington Mutual's Web site, and that my "Scheduled Payments" screen shows a cancelled transaction on 11/30. He said that he doesn't see that on his screen, and asked that I fax over what I'm seeing.

I did. He said that my records only prove that there was a transaction canceled on Sunday night. He said they do not show what I asked to be canceled. In other words, they don't prove that the rep made a mistake. The key here is that there's no record of what I asked for, so I can't prove a mismatch between my request and the rep's action.

I expressed to Stan my surprise that Washington Mutual would rather lose me as a customer than forgive a couple of overdraft fees. He said that if I decided to bank elsewhere that I did have that choice.

Stan and I went round and round for a while, and finally I realized that Stan is just a guy who's probably happy to have a job at all at this point, and he works for a giant company that grades him on how effectively he can screw their customers. He has no power to make things right, or give me the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't matter what's true, and he doesn't care what's right. All that matters is what I can prove. Essentially, I'm trying to talk him into hanging WaMu with their own rope. That's not going to happen.

So I decided to ask the obvious question: how do I prevent this kind of problem in the future. How do I make sure that both my request and the action of the customer service rep are properly logged.

Stan told me that I should ask the rep to notate the account to reflect the conversation. Fair enough. I asked Stan to notate my account with the contents of our conversation. "I've already done that," he said. "Good," I said. "Would you read your notes back to me please."

He said that his notes indicated that he'd explained that this was not a bank error, that he'd explained WaMu policy to me, that my fax proved nothing.

"Stan," I said, "Your notes don't say anything about my request for overdraft protection. Given that this whole problem is the result of there being no record of my payment cancellation request on Sunday night, I'd really like you to add something to your notes about what I've asked for here. I'm not asking you to pay my bills, I'm not asking you to reverse the payment. I just want overdraft protection. Please put that in your notes."

He refused.